"Belief's a luxury. Proof keeps you alive." When the faces in a stranger's manga match the ones in his nightmares, private investigator Neil Ames knows the past hasn't stayed buried—it's been drawn in ink. Emily Granger was murdered twenty years ago. Or so the official story says. Now, a decorated homicide detective is dead. His final message is addressed to Neil. A second autopsy. A forged death certificate. A case once thought closed is tearing apart the life he rebuilt. With his resourceful confidante Octavia Clarke, still recovering from a near-fatal attack during their last case, Neil follows a ciphered path laced with danger—from the rain-infused streets of Destiny Pointe to Tokyo's watchful towers, and into the cold, high reaches of Khan Tengri on the New Silk Trail. Each clue exposes a larger design … a global alliance that thrives on collapse and hides its true intentions behind the mask of innovation. Trapped between a missing identity, a rising body count, and a manga mirroring reality, Neil must face the truth that shattered his life—and decide if redemption is even possible. It started with a lie. The reckoning's coming.